Rory Smith is a football reporter for the Daily and Sunday Telegraph in the north west, covering Liverpool and Everton, as well as Manchester United, Manchester City and the myriad other teams who make up English football's heartland.

Spurs must heed warnings from history to get into the Champions League

What do all of these teams have in common? Everton, Chievo Verona, Hearts, Toulouse, Vitoria Guimaraes and Twente? If you want to extend the point further, add Osasuna, Real Betis and Udinese to that list. Any guesses? The first six are, of course, Champions League debutants who have been unceremoniously dumped out of the competition before it has even truly begun. The other three are sides who were granted a stay of execution until the group stages in their first campaign among Europe's elite.

Tottenham's players and fans may be floating on air today, but they would do well to remember that finishing fourth is not a synonym for being in the Champions League, and it is most definitely not a guarantee of being any good if you do get there.

From an admittedly quick glance at Europe's elite competition since Everton last broke into the Premier League's top four, it seems fair to say that only one side – David Moyes's team's conquerors that year, Villarreal – have taken to life in the Champions League with immediate aplomb. It may not be a stretch to suggest that, the Spanish minnows apart, not one debutant has escaped the group stage in the last five years. A significant percentage do not even get that far. As Everton would testify, the disappointment brought on by seeing an entire season's hard work ground into dust can affect an entire campaign. Everton drowned their Spanish sorrows with a UEFA Cup battering in Bucharest. It lingers.

That is not to say that Spurs, with all of their financial firepower – Harry Redknapp's excellent work in turning the club around in 18 months cannot be questioned, but that he was granted more than £80 million with which to achieve it is not irrelevant – are not better equipped than most of their predecessors to break that trend.

But there is a lack of European pedigree at White Hart Lane, a situation exacerbated by Redknapp's refusal last season to take the UEFA Cup, as it was still called, seriously. Against the likes of Zenit St Petersburg, Dinamo Kiev or Sevilla – all potential play-off opponents – it is not who is on the pitch so much as how you arrange them that is the issue, and that is where Redknapp will face his most exacting challenge.

The prevalent view seems to be that Spurs's ascension, and not Manchester City's, to the top tier is one of those fabled Good Things For Football. Such logic is slightly woolly – they just happen to be the two biggest spenders in the Premier League over the last two years – but it is hard to disagree with the assertion that, domestically at least, there should now be a big five, rather than a big four. City will spend regardless. Tottenham would too, of course, but they may now be able to attract a better class of player.

It may even be a big six, of course, depending on how the chaos at Liverpool develops. Fernando Torres, had City overhauled Spurs, would no doubt have been the target of a gargantuan bid from Eastlands and may have found himself tempted to move so as to showcase his wares among the elite. That rationale has gone; City may still try to sign him, but for a player who is either a genuinely loyal character or simply has an excellent PR team, he may now struggle to make such a move seem legitimate.

With Barcelona apparently keen to add David Villa to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, that leaves Internazionale and Chelsea as his only two options. Italy may seem tempting if Inter win the Champions League, though he would have to dislodge Samuel Eto'o and the excellent Diego Milito, while whether Chelsea can afford to splash £70 million on a striker when they have so many other holes to fill is a debate for another day. Peter Crouch, ironically, may just have kept Torres at Anfield, and made returning to the Champions League that little bit more difficult for Spurs.